


Crush

by SparkleMoose



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Character Study, Experimental writing, Gen, MT Prompto Argentum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:41:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27189487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparkleMoose/pseuds/SparkleMoose
Summary: He’s in a car with three beautiful boys.He’d give them the world if he could.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 69





	Crush

Prompto liked to think of himself as honest. He liked to think of himself as a man that told the truth, no matter how unwanted, how cruel it could be. He tried to soften the hard blows, the ones that would make those he cared for tear up and sob but when those he didn’t know cried at the words he spoke the panic he felt was spurred on by the fact he didn’t feel anything.

Prompto tried to think of himself as kind, but knew he wasn’t.

* * *

Cindy cried as they delivered the news of a Hunter dead, torn to bits by a pack of sabertusks,

Cindy cried, and Prompto tried to comfort her. To seem more human that he was but the words gets lodged in his throat and all he can think is-

Units aren’t supposed to cry.

But Cindy was not a Unit. She was human. Flesh and bone and devoid of metal and it took more strength than it should have for Prompto to remember that he too, is flesh and bone.

That he had left, had burned a base to the ground before they had a chance to change him.

* * *

His first memories were of a lab. The walls white and sterile and a hundred faces just like his watching his every move. The older units dead eyed and red eyed and Prompto couldn’t name the emotion in his chest when he saw them but he later learned it was hate.

Whether it was hate for what they were, for how they watched as Prompto struck down brother after brother, sister after sister, and didn’t do anything to help or if it was simply hate borne of fear Prompto didn’t know.

Prompto tried not to think of the past on most days. Thought to bury the memory of a gun in his hand under bright smiles and the flash of a camera. Prompto tried not to think of how he knows exactly where to slide a knife into his friends to ensure a quick death.

MT Units are meant to be efficient and Prompto had always kept a clean house.

* * *

When Prompto met Ignis, Prompto’s first thought had been that Ignis would have made a good MT. Ignis was efficient, methodical. Deadly in his use of daggers and spears and if Prompto looked at the other long enough Prompto began to wonder how hard it would be to teach Ignis how to move like an Assassination Unit.

Something dark, something that made bile rise in his throat always prevented him from going any further down that road.

He thought that it could be shame.

* * *

MT Unit 997 blinked at the carnage around her. Bodies were strewn throughout the snowcapped landscape, the limp form of one of the scientists that worked on the MT program not a meter away from her.

MT Unit 997 blinked again beneath her helmet. Something old, something too human for her half daemonic form to fully comprehend roaring it’s head against the dark in her mind.

Beside her, an Imperial General told his men to go look for the remains of the one that did this.

She does not move until the Generals men are out of sight.

The man makes a remark about her being useless and that ugly feeling reared it’s head again.

She didn’t think twice about picking up her rifle and emptying it into the Imperial General next to her.

MT Unit 997 died after disposing of the other humans in the group.

She died just as the sun rose.

She could have survived, she knew, had she kept her helmet on but just once-

Just once she wanted to feel the sun on her skin.

Even if it killed her.

* * *

Gladio was honest.

Prompto hated it, liar that he was. He hated Gladio’s honesty, hated how it was one thing he beat Prompto at. Hated how despite everything, despite how hard Prompto tried to be honest and good and everything that the marrow of his bones said he is not Gladio beat him at it.

Prompto hated it more than he can remember hating anything that didn’t have to do with the labs.

* * *

Prompto did not make a habit of lying. There was no reason too. His friends knew he had come from the Empire, knew that he was an Imperial and Prompto had thought, the day after he had met Noctis, that he would wind up in jail for even allowing his dirty, blood stained presence to come close to the prince, to try and be the princes friend.

He didn’t, instead Prompto was allowed to stay next to the Prince. To stay next to Noctis.

To Noctis who was bright like the sun and burning, burning. Prompto was allowed to stay with Noctis who Prompto was sure would one day burn out and leave nothing but darkness in his wake.

But Prompto knew how to kill. Had his hand stained with the blood of his own brothers and sisters.

Prompto knew how to kill, and he picked up a gun during Crownsguard training he didn’t think twice.

* * *

Gladio trained with him, Gladio made Prompto run and shot and then run some more and Prompto wanted to scowl, to hiss and to glare at Gladio. To scream that Prompto himself is a ready made weapon can’t you see that? Can’t you see how easy it would be to kill all of you?

A moment in a spar would be the only opening Prompto would need to rip the heart out of Gladio’s chest. The moment came, the moment to put an end to the headache that’s been plaguing him came and Prompto froze.

His hand goes to the wristband that hid the tattoo underneath, unaware of his own harsh breathing, of how Gladio had stopped moving and stepped away from Prompto even as Prompto’s fingers dug into the leather of the wristband.

Unit 666 reporting for duty-

Unit 52053 reporting in-

How many people had Prompto killed in the name of survival? In the hopes of being noticed for how clean, how methodical he was?

How many siblings had perished beneath Prompto’s hands?

Prompto was dimly aware of Gladio next to him, talking to him, telling Prompto to match his breathing and counting to three before starting all over again.

Prompto copied Gladio without a second thought. And when he calmed enough to let go of his wrist Prompto took a shaky breath and stared at Gladio.

”Thanks, Big Guy,” Prompto said, “I’ll just- I’ll just go.”

Gladio did not pressure him, but they wound up trashing Prompto’s place with junk food wrappers as they watched shitty movies anyway.

* * *

Prompto used to think of himself as a series of numbers and letters. He used to think of himself as just another one of many until one day while he was getting punished and the others weren’t he thought that if they were all the same the others would be getting punished too.

They did not.

Prompto did. The realization that they were all different started when he realized he was different.

This realization did not stop him from killing those who stood in his way as the base around them burned.

* * *

Prompto did not know what happened to the other units when he broke out.

He did not understand why a part of him wished they were alive.

* * *

Prompto changed his mind.

Ignis would be a terrible MT. For all the fronts Ignis gives, they are just that, fronts. Masks to hide what goes on beneath the surface. To cover up a mind that feels everything too keenly and is willing to give everything for those he loves.

Ignis would be a terrible MT.

Prompto wonders how it is they can get along so well when Prompto himself was one of the best.

* * *

Noctis shone.

No matter the space, no matter the time of day, Noctis shone.

Prompto would be lying if he said it didn’t burn. If Prompto hadn’t thought of running and running and running from Noctis’ light. Noctis would find out what Prompto was one day, secrets don’t last forever and Prompto knew that when the time came he would have to die.

Loyalty demanded sacrifice, Prompto was willing to hang himself if it meant Noctis would still shine.

* * *

Love is a strange word. It bloomed, it blossomed on trees and in the hearts of men. It could drive a man to war or peace and Prompto knew it all too well.

Love is a form of loyalty, Gladio told him once. At the time Prompto hadn’t understood it, hadn’t thought too think too deeply on it. But he was here, in the present, under the light of the sun that would have killed him if he stayed in the Empire; he was here, in a car with three beautiful men and Prompto thought, ever quietly, that he would rather die than let anything happen to them.

The thought sparked something in his chest, and not for the first time, Prompto thought that if he could give the three men in the car the world, he would.

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, it’s three thirty am. I threw up twice today due to Dysautonomia and cannot sleep. Y’all are getting this half finished nonsense I dug up out of my drafts and polished a little for you and yes, the summary is a Richard Siken Reference.
> 
> MT Prompto more like MT ‘I dont know emotions and am too scared to ask’ Prompto.


End file.
